Sounding The Alarm

A Guide To Smoke, Carbon Monoxide And Radon Detectors

July 05, 1996|By Leslie M. Marable, Money Magazine

It's a grim staple of the nightly news: Families overcome by smoke or killed in their sleep by carbon monoxide. Since January, there have been fatal fires in at least eight major cities, and injuries or deaths from carbon monoxide in Cleveland, Long Island, N.Y., and St. Paul.

Sometimes a celebrated victim gives these hazards an even higher profile, as in the 1994 death of 40-year-old tennis star Vitas Gerulaitis, killed by a carbon monoxide leak from a faulty swimming pool heater. Stories like his have helped propel sales of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors to an estimated $324 million in sales in 1995, up 74 percent since 1993.

Chances are you already have a smoke detector or two, and maybe even one to guard against carbon monoxide. But do you have enough detectors, installed in the right parts of your home, to make sure your family is safe?

Here's what you need to know:

- Smoke detectors ($5 to $35). Most smoke detectors today use what's called ionization technology to sense fast-flaming fires with the potential to spread quickly. If a fire breaks out in your home, a detector will usually alert you as soon as smoke reaches it. Often that's enough time to make your way to safety.

Having a smoke detector can cut your chances of dying in a fire in half, according to the National Fire Protection Association, a non-profit educational organization. Nearly 60 percent of the more than 3,500 people who die in fires each year were in homes without detectors, the association says.

Fortunately, about 93 percent of the roughly 100 million households in the United States now have at least one smoke detector. Unfortunately, fully a third of those detectors don't work. The most common reason, according to a 1994 Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) study is dead, disconnected or missing batteries.

The CPSC recommends installing at least one smoke detector on every level of your home. The best place for an early warning is outside bedroom areas. To avoid annoying false alarms, try to keep detectors at least 10 feet away from bathrooms (where steam can set them off), and avoid putting one in or just outside your kitchen.

If you need a new detector, look for the Underwriters Laboratories certification mark and the phrase "UL listed." UL, an independent testing facility funded by manufacturers, puts detectors through five separate simulated fire tests. Be wary of detectors that don't carry that wording but instead claim to meet UL standards; they may or may not have been adequately tested by another laboratory.

Once you've narrowed your search to UL-listed models, shop by price and features. The technology used to sniff out smoke varies little from model to model and maker to maker. But optional features can quickly increase the price.

For example, you can get a basic model equipped with a 9-volt battery for $5 or so in many stores. For about $10 you can buy First Alert's SA90LT, which includes a battery tester you can activate with a flashlight beam--a handy feature if you don't want to get out the ladder every time you need to check your detector's batteries. People with hearing difficulties can buy detectors equipped with bright strobe lights in addition to alarms.

Try to test each unit monthly. Clean the detector and replace batteries once a year. If you detest changing batteries, check out the new models powered by a 10-year lithium battery. They cost about $20 extra. And if you have old detectors hanging around your house, consider replacing them. The life span of a smoke detector is about 10 years.

- Carbon monoxide detectors ($35 to $80). Carbon monoxide is an odorless, colorless and deadly gas that's produced when any fuel is incompletely burned by, for example, a furnace or a water heater. The gas kills at least 300 Americans a year and sends another 5,000 to the emergency room, according to the CPSC. Even those numbers may vastly underestimate the problem, experts say, because the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning, such as headache and nausea, are often mistaken for the flu.

Despite the danger, carbon monoxide detectors are in place in only a small portion (about 7 percent) of U.S. homes. In part that's because the technology is still relatively new; Underwriters Laboratories released its first testing standards for these products only in 1992.

But the detectors' lack of popularity may also be the result of highly publicized glitches with some early models that scared off buyers. Those detectors turned out to be easily triggered by low levels of carbon monoxide. As a result, UL phased in new standards, and UL-listed units manufactured after October 1995 should be less trigger-happy.

The CPSC suggests installing at least one detector outside the bedroom areas of your home.